INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[hoosiercheetah]

I have the Ador door. I had my JG hen get caught in the door once. I happened to be in the yard and heard this big squawk. I went over to the coop, and the door was closed, but there was a head sticking out of the base of the door. I freaked and thought it had cut off her head! But I went over and she was just pinned to the floor. I pulled the door up and she got up and stalked away, shreds of dignity intact. I think she was napping right in the doorway, and even though the door was closing slowly, never bothered to move until she couldn't.

This is why I was thinking that a beam-switch might be a better safety feature, especially for a diy door. Of course, as soon as someone poops on the beam sender or receiver, the door wouldn't close. So it would have to be installed in some kind of poop-proof enclosure. I just thought of two ways to do that.

 

[hoosiercheetah]

This post is about building a DIY automatic / remote control coop door from a car antenna. If you have no interest, skip it. It goes on and on and on.



However, if you are thinking of building one, please please read it. There are serious safety considerations.



Here are my thoughts.



When you hook a motor up to power, there are two things going on at the same time - volts and amps. (There's actually a lot more to it, but that's all we need to worry about).




The volts will determine how fast the motor operates. More volts = faster motor. The car antenna is designed to run at 12V, obviously. Running it higher or lower won't hurt it, as long as you're within the motor's operating range. In this case, just guessing, +/- 5V would probably be fine, but it will change the motor speed a little bit.




The amp draw of the motor depends on the load. The more load on the motor (heavier coop door), the more amps it will draw. The antenna motor is designed to have a very light load, just an antenna going up. Having it raise a coop door is going to cause it to draw more amps. This is fine, as long as we don't draw too much.




There are three main factors limiting how much amperage we can safely draw. One is the motor itself. If you draw too many amps, you could overheat the motor and possibly melt its internal wiring. The second is the power supply (p/s). If the motor is attempting to draw more amps than the p/s is capable of delivering, you could burn out the p/s. In an extreme case it could catch fire. The third is the wiring. If you draw more amps than the wiring is rated for, you could overheat it, melting the insulation or the wire itself, possibly shorting the circuit to ground. In a dusty coop environment, this could be catastrophic.




Fortunately, it's easy to protect the system from overheating and burning up your chickens - and this is the thing that I have not seen in anyone's design - with a fuse. A fuse is designed to overheat and stop the electricity before the wiring can overheat. Having an appropriately rated fuse is critical. When these antenna are installed in the car, there is a fuse in the circuit. However, we can not simply use the same rating fuse ( I think they are usually 10 or 15 amp) because we are not using the same wiring and we have a heavier load. Our fuse has to be rated for our application, and that's where a little bit of engineering has to happen.




We have to know how many amps our motor is going to draw when lifting our door. The wiring has to be rated to carry more than that many amps. Then we need a fuse that will blow at a lower amperage than the wire's maximum, but a greater amperage than the motor will draw in normal operation. And also, the power supply has to be rated to deliver the amp draw that the motor needs to operate the door.




It sounds to me like so far, everyone who has built one of these has gotten lucky (or did the engineering and just didn't write it all out) but personally, I wouldn't just repeat someone else's build and expect the same results and safe operation, unless I was sure that every detail was identical, and I knew that they had worked through the design to be sure that all of the parts were rated for the job. If any previous builders want to chime in on that, feel free - I'm not attacking anyone's previous work, I'm just asking a fair question in order to ensure everyone's safety in the future.




The good news is, even if it sounds complicated, designing a system like this to be safe is pretty easy. You just have to operate the motor under it's load, measure the amp draw, and make sure everything else can handle it. Leave enough gap between the motor's draw and the wire's rating to put a fuse rated between the two of them, and you're all set.
It probably sounds like I'm over-thinking this, and maybe re-inventing the wheel. There's a good chance that you can just throw together some parts and make this work, and maybe you'll never have a problem. I just think that a little extra testing and thought going into the project is worth it to ensure the safety of your flock and their home.

I will be happy to do the engineering for anyone who wants me to. Send me a PM so I can walk you through the process. You'll have to get the antenna first. Once you have that, there are several ways to proceed - you can send me the antenna for testing and I can send you back a complete design, or you can do your own testing and design, and I'll be happy to answer questions and guide you through it via PM.

ETA: I just thought of a way to do this with one power supply instead of two.



That's me, crashing my world into yours. Enjoy!

 

[number9]

WOW!

its the growl that make me giggle the most, oh my! I think I have a 5th australorp broody now. UGH! 1 of 5 politely lets me gather her fluffed body up and put her in the coop, she likes the wicker bench on the back porch. The rest want to peck. I scoop them off the nest, gather the eggs and put them back. I would love to let them be mommas.. just not possible in the egg coop. Its making me crazy, they are my best layers!

But is your back ok? Awesome about the pasture, they appreciate it for sure!


Lot of good ideas! I am not good with electrical stuff at all.
Try looking here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/newsearch?search=fowl+pox
I remember reading about vaccine prevention on one of these threads. Hopefully someone can help you more, good luck!

Thank you. I have read some of the post on fowl pox and I think they will be helpful. Thanks for helping me find some answers.

 

[Mother2Hens]

Mother2Hens:
hoosiercheetah ~ Sunbathing is pretty weird, too.

Thank you for sparing me this grief! :-D

Is there any other bizarre chicken behaviour I don't know about?

hoosiercheetah ~ Chickens specialize in bizarre behavior --- it's fun to discover it.

Btw, are you from that beautiful country across the pond? (noticed your spelling) If so, we have another wonderful member from England, vickichicki who lives in Indy.
And how are your chickens doing?

 

[hoosiercheetah]

hoosiercheetah ~ Chickens specialize in bizarre behavior --- it's fun to discover it.

Btw, are you from that beautiful country across the pond? (noticed your spelling) If so, we have another wonderful member from England, vickichicki who lives in Indy.
And how are your chickens doing?

No, I'm local. But I've lived in a lot of places, and I have a pretty multi-national set of friends, so I've picked up a few odd linguistic habits over the years. And my grandmothers are Scottish on one side and Irish on the other. ;-)

The chickens are doing well! I think the only real problem I have is my little Gray EE, who has an injured eye. I'm sure now that it's an injury, not an illness, and I'm pretty sure I know who the culprit is. But she's not pecking much anymore, other than the occasional warning shot at the food bowl, so I don't think I have to eat her. Yet. Anyway, the swelling in his face has gone down. He still keeps the eye closed most of the time, so I'm doing saline and observation, and I think he's ready to re-integrate. I'm going to put him in his isolation pen in the coop for a day or two, to let him and his buddy re-introduce themselves to the flock before I turn them loose.

I do think I've got a little dust irritation going around, and possibly a little mold from leaves I was using for litter, so I'm going to clean the coop out and start over with just pine shavings.

I'm also adding a pair of Marans, one birchen and one copper-black, some time in the next few weeks. I think I should probably give everyone a chance to settle down after re-adding the EE's. I'll bring the new birds in with the isolation cage too, so we can have some look-don't-touch time. They're from the same source as almost all of the other birds, so I'm not to concerned about quarantine. These will be the last grown-out birds I bring in. From here out I'll raise my own chicks. So much less to worry about. Which is the opposite of what I thought when I started.

Live and learn!

 

[Leahs Mom]

A friend got me a chicken tractor this spring.

I just now moved it out to the "death corner". The wheels are whirley-gigs. I figure I'll move it around a bit out there. Can't hurt.





For perspective - the chicken house is to the right. They have to go all the way back to where the chicken tractor is by the gate to go around that to run over to their run gate.


That plastic footstool is a hawk hide. I think Miss Gray got under one of those and it likely saved her life. I have 4 of them out in the open places. Her feathers were all around one of those.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'm also adding a pair of Marans, one birchen and one copper-black, some time in the next few weeks. I think I should probably give everyone a chance to settle down after re-adding the EE's. I'll bring the new birds in with the isolation cage too, so we can have some look-don't-touch time. They're from the same source as almost all of the other birds, so I'm not to concerned about quarantine. These will be the last grown-out birds I bring in. From here out I'll raise my own chicks. So much less to worry about. Which is the opposite of what I thought when I started.

Live and learn!

Okay...I'm going to give you a scolding.

No matter what the source is, you MUST quarantine. Once your birds get settled, things are still different in your flock and environment than where you got them from. Especially more-so because your stock is from 2 different places.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Do keep the new ones separate at least 2 weeks. Many go as long as a full month.

2-4 weeks totally separate.
Another 2 weeks separate with the addition of one of your current birds.
Then integrate.

I think it will save you a world of trouble....

Okay...off my

Edited because I always make some kind of typo, it seems.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Oh...I guess I should have explained that there are wooded areas over to the left of those photos where they can get under bushes, etc. The hawk hide foot stool thingies are in the open places between the woods and the run where they have to traverse open skies.


Here's one of the kiddos standing on top of the hawk hide. It does double duty

 

[hoosiercheetah]

I think it will save you a world of trouble....

I like the sound of saving a world of trouble!

I wouldn't want to keep them in the tiny hospital pen that long, and frankly it's a pita to get it out of the garage into the yard for a few hours a day.

So, I'll have to see if I can come up with an outdoor quarantine pen. Maybe I can figure a way to add a small coop to it so I can leave it outside. Basically I'd need to build a two-bird tractor. I think I've got the building materials, I might be able to get something together that would hold them for a few weeks, esp. if I can move it around the yard.

If not, I think I'll have to pass on the chickens. It wouldn't be worth adding the potential for problems.

 

[Primal Momma]

I have tried three times to upload a pic of my girl turned boy sunning himself and it won't load. I'll just try again later.